Latest geo-gTLD goes to sunrise

After a protracted limited registration process, the latest geographic gTLD is due to shortly go live.

.zuerich, representing the canton and city of Zürich in Switzerland, went into sunrise yesterday. Registrations come with residency restrictions.

The sunrise runs the whole month of September, to be followed by a month-long limited registration period. General availability comes November 22.

In DNS terms, Zürich has the misfortune of having a diacritic in its name. While it could have applied for an internationalized domain name variant, it chose to deumlautize the string with the addition of a “E” instead.

The gTLD has been in the root for almost seven years, believe it or not, but it only now getting around to its formal launch phases.

ICANN records show its first restricted registration phase started in 2017.

Zone files show 25 live domains, but a web search reveals only one active non-registry web site — an addiction treatment center.

.zuerich is government-run, using CentralNic for registry services.

The canton has around 1.5 million inhabitants, around 440,000 of whom live in the city.

DotKids signs very weird new gTLD contract

New gTLD registry hopeful DotKids Foundation has become the latest to sign its ICANN Registry Agreement, and it’s a bit odd.

The signing means that DotKids only needs to have its registry back-end, managed by Donuts/Afilias, pass the formality of its pre-delegation testing before .kids finds its way into the DNS root.

It’s going to be a regulated TLD, with strict rules about what kind of content can be posted there. It’s designed for under-18s, so there’ll be no permitted violence, sex, drugs, gambling etc.

DotKids plans to enforce this with a complaint-response mechanism. There won’t be any pre-vetting of registrants or content.

There are a few notable things about .kids worth bringing up.

First, the contract was signed August 13 by DotKids director Edmon Chung, best known as CEO of DotAsia. A few days later, he was selected for the ICANN board of directors by the Nominating Committee.

Second, it’s the first and only new gTLD to have been acquired on the cheap — DotKids got over $130,000 of support from ICANN as the only outfit to successfully apply under the Applicant Support program.

Third, DotKids’ Public Interest Commitments are mental.

PICs are the voluntary, but binding, rules that new gTLD registries opt to abide by, but the DotKids PICs read more like the opening salvo in a future lawsuit than clauses in a registry contract.

Three PICs in particular caught my eye, such as this one that seems to suggest DotKids wants to restrict its channel to only a subset of accredited registrars, and then doesn’t:

Notwithstanding Section 1 above, the Registry Operator makes a commitment to support ICANN’s overarching goals of the new gTLD program to enhance competition and consumer choice, and enabling the benefits of innovation via the introduction of new gTLDs. The Registry Operator further acknowledges that at the time of this writing, it is uncertain whether or not the limiting of distribution of new gTLDs to only a subset of ICANN Accredited Registrars would undermine ICANN’s own public interest commitments to enhance competition and consumer choice. In the absence of the confirmation from ICANN and the ICANN community that such undertaking would not run counter to ICANN’s overarching goals of the new gTLD program, or in the case that ICANN and/or the ICANN community confirms that indeed such arrangement (as described in 1. above) runs counter to ICANN’s public interest commitments and overarching goals, the Registry Operator shall refrain from limiting to such subset as described in 1. above.

I’ve read this half a dozen times and I’m still not sure I know what DotKids is getting at. Does it want to have a restricted registrar base, or not?

This paragraph is immediately followed by the equally baffling commitment to establish the PICs Dispute Resolution Procedure as a formal Consensus Policy:

Notwithstanding Section 2 and 4 above, the Registry Operator makes a commitment to support, participate in and uphold, as a stakeholder, the multi-stakeholder, bottom-up policy development process at ICANN, including but not limited to the development of Consensus Policies. For the avoidance of doubt, the Registry Operator anticipates that the PICDRP be developed as a Consensus Policy, or through comparably open, transparent and accountable processes, and commits to participating in the development of the PICDRP as a Consensus Policy in accordance to Specification 1 of this Agreement for Consensus Policies and Temporary Policies. Furthermore, that any remedies ICANN imposes shall adhere to the remedies specified in the PICDRP as a Consensus Policy.

The problem with this is that PICDRP is not a Consensus Policy, it’s just something ICANN came up with in 2013 to address Governmental Advisory Committee concerns about “sensitive” TLDs.

It was subject to public comments, and new gTLD registries are contractually obliged to abide by it, but it didn’t go through the years-long process needed to create a Consensus Policy.

So what the heck is this PIC doing in a contract signed in 2021?

The next paragraph is even more of a head-scratcher, invoking a long-dead ICANN agreement and seemingly mounting a preemptive legal defense against future complaints.

Notwithstanding Section 2 above, the Registry Operator makes a commitment to support ICANN in its fulfillment of the Affirmation of Commitments, including to promote competition, consumer trust, and consumer choice in the DNS marketplace. The Registry Operator further makes an observation that the premise of this Specification 11 is predicated on addressing the GAC advice that “statements of commitment and objectives to be transformed into binding contractual commitments, subject to compliance oversight by ICANN”, which is focused on statements of commitment and objectives and not business plans. As such, and as reasonably understood that business plans for any prudent operation which preserves security, stability and resiliency of the DNS must evolve over time, the Registry Operator will operate the registry for the TLD in compliance with all commitments and statements of intent while specific business plans evolve. For the avoidance of doubt, where such business plan evolution involves changes that are consistent with the said commitments and objectives of Registry Operator’s application to ICANN for the TLD, such changes shall not be a breach by the Registry Operator in its obligations pursuant to 2. above.

If you’re struggling to recall what the Affirmation of Commitments is, that’s because it was scrapped four years ago following ICANN’s transition out from under US government oversight. It literally has no force or meaning any more.

So, again, why is it showing up in a 2021 Registry Agreement?

The answer seems to be that the PICs were written in March 2013, when references to the AoC and the PICDRP as a potential Consensus Policy made a whole lot more sense.

While a lot of this looks like the kind of labyrinthine legalese that could only have been written by an ICANN lawyer, nope — these PICs are all DotKids’ handiwork.

ICANN seems to have been quite happy to dump a bunch of irrelevant nonsense into DotKids’s legally binding contract, and sign off on it.

But given that ICANN doesn’t seem convinced it even has the power to enforce PICs in contracts signed after 2016, does it even matter?

MMX drops two registrars

MMX has dumped two registrar contracts with ICANN, as the company’s asset-sale to GoDaddy nears completion.

ICANN records show that Minds and Machines LLC and Minds and Machines Registrar UK Limited both entered “terminated” status over the last few days, meaning they’re no longer accredited to sell gTLD domains.

But they weren’t doing any selling of domains anyway. The UK company had 108 domains under management and the US on had none at the last count.

The US accreditation was the one used primarily by the company under its original business model of a “triple-play” registry/registrar/back-end, when it was still going by Minds + Machines, which was abandoned five years ago.

The registrar peaked at about 50,000 names, which were then transferred over to Uniregistry. The back-end business was also abandoned, with Nominet taking over technical management of most of its gTLDs.

MMX is currently in the process of getting out of its sole remaining third business, that of gTLD registry.

GoDaddy has already taken over most of its 27 gTLDs under a $120 million deal announced earlier this year. Four TLDs remain, and will be transferred subject to approval from government partners.

Dead dot-brands #92 and #93

Two more companies have withdrawn from the new gTLD space, asking ICANN to rip up their dot-brand contracts.

The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, an Australian university, has terminated its contract for .rmit, and SwiftCover, an American insurance company, has withdrawn .swiftcover.

SwiftCover next used its gTLD, according to zone file records. Not once.

RMIT had registered a small handful of domains under .rmit, and had been using at least one of them — which wasn’t even a redirect to the uni’s main .au site — as recently as February this year.

But by May the experiment was over, with RMIT filing its ICANN papers.

These are the 92nd and 93rd dot-brand termination notices to be published by ICANN.

GoDaddy and MMX delay closure of $120 million gTLD deal

GoDaddy and MMX have extended the deadline for final closure of their $120 million gTLD acquisition deal by a couple weeks.

MMX said this week the delay is to give them more time to seek approvals from business partners in the four gTLDs that have not already made the move, believed to be .bayern, .boston, .miami and .nrw.

These are all geographic strings that require local government sign-off to complete the transfers.

The deadline had been August 7. It’s now August 23.

GoDaddy Registry has already taken control of 23 of MMX’s gTLDS.

This company had every reason to want a dot-brand, but just killed it off

The latest dot-brand to terminate its new gTLD registry contract with ICANN could have been a case study in why dot-brands are a good idea.

Dabur India is 137 years old and makes over a billion dollars a year selling consumer goods — mainly cosmetics and personal care products, but also shady-looking Ayurvedic alternative medicines and supplements — in its home country and beyond, and it had experimented with using its .dabur gTLD over the last six years.

But it’s no longer interested, telling ICANN recently that it wants its Registry Agreement torn up, which ICANN has agreed to.

That’s despite the fact that Dabur appears to be suffering from exactly the kind of problem that dot-brands were supposed to help mitigate.

If you visit its web site at dabur.com today, you’ll be immediately presented with a very prominent pop-up warning you about scammers exploiting the Dabur trademark to grift money out of people who think they’re signing up to be official distributors.

The notice is lengthy but in part reads:

DABUR is only dealing with trade through www.dabur.com and any person claiming themselves to be taking order for the supply of DABUR products via phone/online may be cheating with you. DABUR shall not be responsible for any order placed other than on our official website www.dabur.com

One of the biggest selling points for the dot-brand concept is that customers can be taught to distrust any solicitation purporting to be legit if it does not originate from a domain in the relevant dot-brand.

If the notice on dabur.com is any guide, turns out you can do the same thing with a .com domain.

Dabur had briefly experimented with its gTLD not long after it was delegated. Current zone files show half a dozen .dabur names, but only two seem to resolve or show up in search engines. One redirects to the .com site.

Ironically, the other is doctor.dabur, in which Dabur solicits doctors to sign up to push its Ayurvedic products. Ayurveda is a form of medical quackery popular in South Asia.

Added to the recent self-termination of QVC’s .qvc, the total number of dot-brands to lose their registry contracts is now 91.

Another new gTLD applicant lawyers up on ICANN

Another rejected new gTLD applicant has filed an Independent Review Process complaint against ICANN, claiming the org failed to follow proper procedures on fairness and transparency.

And I think it’s got a pretty good chance of winning.

A Bahrain company called GCCXI has filed the IRP, eight years after its application for .gcc was thrown out by ICANN on the vague advice of its Governmental Advisory Community.

.gcc is for Gulf Cooperation Council, the short-hand English name for the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Persian Gulf, a proto-union of six states on the east coast of the Arabian peninsula.

The applicant’s problem is that it’s not affiliated with, nor supported by, the GCC or its member states.

The GAC, in its controversial Beijing communique of April 2013 objected to GCCXI’s application in the same breath and under the same power as it objected to DotConnectAfrica’s .africa bid.

Back then, the GAC was much more secretive than it is today, and did not have to provide a rationale for its advice. Its powers to object to gTLD applications pretty much amounted to a veto.

ICANN dutifully followed the GAC’s advice, throwing out the .gcc application later that year.

The applicant has evidently been trying to get ICANN to change its mind, using the Request for Reconsideration and then Cooperative Engagement Processes, since early 2014. That CEP concluded in May, and GCCXI filed for IRP in June.

Why did the CEP — a form of arbitration designed to avoid expensive IRP complaints and lawsuits — take so long and ultimately fail?

Don’t look to the IRP complaint published by ICANN (pdf) for answers — it’s redacted the whole ruddy lot, a few pages of text, without explanation.

That’s ironic given that a lack of transparency is one of GCCXI’s beefs against the org, along with an alleged failure to follow its bylaws on neutrality and fairness.

ICANN has ignored all of its carefully developed and documented policies, and instead has kowtowed to unspecified government concerns — devising a secret process to kill Claimant’s investment and opportunity, and completely disregarding the public interest in delegating the TLD for use.

The continued fight for a gTLD it surely has no hope of ever operating is a ballsy move by the applicant.

It’s roughly equivalent to some random European company applying to run .eu to represent the geographic region of EU member states without the consent of the EU institutions themselves and then complaining when it’s told to take a walk.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean it will lose the IRP. In fact, I think it has a pretty good chance of winning.

GCCXI does not deserve to prove it should be given .gcc, it only needs to show that ICANN broke its own bylaws.

DotConnectAfrica, which was rejected by the GAC and then ICANN for pretty much the same unsubstantiated reasons — the GAC “veto” — won its IRP in 2015, with the panel finding that ICANN accepted the GAC’s unexplained advice without even rudimentary due diligence, violating its commitment to fairness.

It was particularly embarrassing for the GAC, whose then-chair admitted that the committee deliberately kept its advice vague and open to interpretation

While .africa is not exactly the same as .gcc (the former is officially a geographic string, the latter is not), GCCXI had DCA had their applications rejected based on the exact same piece of GAC advice.

It’s also similar to Amazon’s IRP fight for .amazon, which it won. That bid was also kicked out as a result of ICANN’s adoption of opaque GAC advice from the Beijing communique.

You’ve got to think GCCXI has a decent shot at a victory here, though if recent IRPs and general ICANN foot-dragging on accountability are any guide we won’t know for a couple years.

GoDaddy welcomes four porn TLDs

GoDaddy may not have the raunchy public image it once promoted, but it’s now the official registry for tens of thousands of porn-related domain names.

The gTLDs .xxx, .porn, .adult and .sex made the move from UNR’s back-end to GoDaddy Registry this week, IANA records show.

These almost certainly the TLDs that MMX was talking about last week when it said it had ICANN approval to reassign four contracts, which it did not name.

IANA records still show the sponsor as ICM Registry for all four, suggesting the deal was structured a little differently to the 20-odd other gTLDs in MMX’s portfolio, which are still with MMX.

MMX said earlier this year that it was selling its entire portfolio to GoDaddy for at least $120 million.

.xxx, which launched the earliest — pre-2012 — is the largest of the TLDs, with around 55,000 names under management. .porn has about 10,000 and the other two have about 8,000 each.

New gTLD buzz is back again as ICA hosts “second round” webinar

It’s beginning to feel a little like 2011 again.

The Internet Commerce Association today said it will host a Zoom webinar next month to pitch the looming second new gTLD round to prospective applicants.

Moderated by Christa Taylor, the panel features domain industry jacks-of-all-trades Jeff Neuman and Jothan Frakes, and consultant Phil Buckingham. All four know what they’re talking about.

The ICA said the session will cover “an examination of material changes, expected timing and operations within the broader ecosystem will help participants determining whether to pursue a new gTLD for their new entrepreneurial venture, global brand or growing business”.

Expect a lot more of these types of meetings over the next couple of years. The 2012 gold-rush may have disappointed many, but there’s still money to be made in selling shovels, especially to brands.

And the next round is still a ways off.

While policy changes have been approved by the Generic Names Supporting Organization, they need to be approved by the ICANN board of directors before the serious implementation work begins.

The policy won’t be put before the board until ICANN org has completed its Operational Design Phase work, which CEO Göran Marby recently said will take “longer than six months”.

Then there’ll be at least one revision of the Applicant Guidebook open for public comment, as well as the creation of new systems and a global outreach campaign lasting several months before the application window opens.

I’d say we’re looking at an absolute minimum of 18 months between the start of the ODP and the opening of the next application window, and I’m being incredibly generous to ICANN in that estimation.

Still, it doesn’t hurt to start thinking about these things early. The ICA webinar will be at 1800 UTC August 4. You can read more and register for free here.

MMX gets nod to sell 22 gTLDs to GoDaddy

New gTLD registry MMX expects to shortly offload most of its portfolio of strings to GoDaddy Registry after receiving ICANN approvals.

The company said today that its transfer requests for four of its gTLD contracts have received full ICANN approval.

Another 18 have received conditional ICANN approval, and MMX believes it has met these unspecified conditions.

Another five of its stable that are not fully owned and operated still require the nod from its partners.

MMX said in April that it planned to sell its entire portfolio to GoDaddy, after which it is expected the company will be wound down.

The company did not break down which transfer have received full approval, conditional approval, or are still waiting for approval.

It gTLDs are: .cooking, .fishing, .horse, .miami, .rodeo, .vodka, .beer, .luxe, .surf, .nrw, .work, .budapest, .casa, .abogado, .wedding, .yoga, .fashion, .garden, .fit, .vip, .dds, .xxx, .porn, .adult, .sex, .boston, .london and .bayern.